From ROTC to tank warfare
Following two years of mandatory ROTC, a choice was offered to Junior level students to enroll in advanced military science for two- years that offered a Reserve Officer commission as a 2nd Lt. Following graduation, a tour of duty in the Army or Air Force. They didn’t offer naval programs. Classes were held daily in the military science building. The pay was $28 a month for the two years, with an eight-week army basic training boot camp following the junior year. After graduation, orders came for assignment to a military branch for further training. I selected a combat branch of the army at Ft. Knox, Kent. The draft was still in place, and students were dropping out of school for various reasons and were being drafted into the army. Storm clouds were gathering in Vietnam, but no military conflicts yet. It wouldn’t be long before students fled to Canada to prevent being drafted into the Vietnam conflict.
As a farm kid who grew up around guns, hunting, and heavy farm equipment, joining the armed Calvary would be exciting. I signed up for the program, never dreaming that I would be a 2nd Lt. operating tank firing ranges at Ft. Knox three years later. We were ready for assignments after an intensive 12-week training class in AOB-3 with 29 other young officers. The West Point class was AOB-2, where they were career officers. The rest of us were short-term reservists. Most of my classmates were from Southern states, military academies, and many LSU graduates. I learned that these southern gentlemen loved football, coffee and were military-minded, with backgrounds stretching back to the Civil War. I learned that southerners are feisty and very patriotic.
Here’s the bottom line of this “shaggy dog” column. I learned a great deal about tanks. I still have my M1/A1 tank driver’s license. We learned all about these massive war machines that were so prevalent in World War II and Korea. Our training included driving tanks over obstacles, climbing walls and fording water hazards. Four crew members are in a tank: the loader, gunner, driver and commander. Everyone had a headset and was linked to a command network.
During training, we had to run a timed mile every day, make wind sprints until some puked, attend classes, and do tank exercises. We loaded and fired the tank 105 cannon with live ammunition. We dismantled and assembled the 30 -caliber machine gun and the 50 caliber machine gun mounted on the turret. If you watched the movie Fury, which depicted tank battles during World War II, you saw the dangers of tank warfare. The Germans had better Panzer tanks with more firepower. Now they have Leopard tanks that are being sent to Ukraine. The United States is going to send 30 Abrams tanks in a year. I read that Ukraine wants at least 300 of these armed vehicles from various sources. They want the tanks for a military offensive to reclaim lost territory to Russian forces.
I’m all for supporting the Ukraine forces. Still, I am very aware of some of the challenges in transporting, training and operating this many tanks on a remote battlefield in rural Ukraine. I know how long it took me, and some savvy students, to become rookie tank commanders. While we had the latest tank technology that included some pretty sophisticated rangefinders to zero in on targets, it takes immense training, skill and practice. Time is of the essence, with the Russians believed to be launching a spring offensive. These tanks will never arrive in time to repel or launch a major Russian offensive.
Inside the interior of a tank is a seat for the gunner, who receives an order from the commander up top to load a choice of shell. An “HE” round explodes above the ground to scatter shrapnel to kill advancing infantry, and another round, “ME,” has thousands of ball bearings in the shells to mow down approaching troops. Standard artillery shells blow up on impact. Many tanks in Vietnam were used as artillery. The recent Dessert Storm War was an absolute tank offensive that went very well. Tanks can only venture into jungles with infantry support. I’ve been to Vietnam and have seen the burned-out tanks in the jungles.
Lastly, watching newscasts from Ukraine, those forces have destroyed hundreds of Russian tanks with the deadly bazooka shells developed by Israel that can penetrate six-inch thick tank armor. The interior of the tank has all of the large shells stacked around the interior wall by the loader. These new tank killer weapons can be carried by infantry and are death sentences to tanks and crews. I’m hinting that tank warfare may be a thing of the past. Maybe many tanks are being given away because new warfare is rapidly moving to missiles and air defense systems.
Tanks are scary. You can feel the ground shaking when you hear them coming. They will scare the daylights out of raw Russian recruits. But overall, they will not win the war for Ukraine forces. Diplomacy must occur soon to prevent the Russians from just destroying Ukraine cities, one by one, with their missiles and bombs.
I was once the sole range officer for Ft. Knox, my squad, training company after company in tank gunnery. While my Army MOS was Platoon Reconnaissance Leader, being the lead tank ahead of an infantry column had a possible life span of about three minutes. I was fortunate to be assigned to USATC as a range officer supervising the three tank firing tables. I got really good at it. The army offered me a full-time regular army commission, but I declined. I was glad to return home, helping my dad feed cows and my eventual newspaper career.
I never met finer men and women than those I served with in the military. They are genuinely the honorable heroes of our nation.
Next: The evolution of the newspaper industry.